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I just read through the bulk of the 6-page long "Good Carbs" thread. Whew.

I have started working with a trainer in the gym who is a "retired" body builder. I&#39;m not trying to lose weight or necessarily "gain mass" but I do want more muscles and a more symmetrical look like the chicks in the fitness magazines.

I told him about my low-carb diet and he told me that in general low-carb diets work best when you take a day here and there and "refeed". I gather from the Good Carbs post, that for people with fitness goals similar to mine, this is probably true. It also sounds like some of you engage in a "carb refeed" for this purpose on a fairly regular basis.

SO, MY QUESTIONS:

What does your carb refeed consist of? Do you actually eat grains, or do you just load up on fruit? At this point I&#39;m not sure how to do it, or how often I need to be doing it, but tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I imagine I&#39;ll be refeeding some tomorrow. lol.

I generally keep my carbs below 75g per day since starting the PB three months ago. Where would it need to be to be considered a "refeed", and on those days would I decrease the fat/protein amounts too, or just increase the carbs while keeping everything else the same?

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If your going down that route you could take a look at The anabolic diet, (but with primal food choices, if that&#39;s your preference), basically it&#39;s a 1 or 2 day re-feed, usually done over the weekend. Protein, and fat is lowered, carbs increased. If you want to look at the exact ratios there&#39;s plenty of info out there just do a search for "The Anabolic Diet" or "Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale" Food choices: Starchy roots/tubers ie. sweet potato, parsnips, squash etc, I wouldn&#39;t eat to much fruit though.

I personally think that unless you&#39;re an athlete, re-feeds aren&#39;t absolutely necessary, &#39;pends on how you train, how often, how long, hi-rep/low-reps, how intense etc. Personal preference as well...people love their starchy carbs! Especially body builders &#39;cos it pumps their muscles full of glycogen and water and makes em look hyooooge, Yeah buddy!

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http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark94.htm

Jeez according to the calculator on this site I&#39;d have to eat between 500-800g of carbs per day on my refeed days. I don&#39;t even think I had that much before I went PB, when I was on a "low cal, low fat" eating plan.

Will it not work if I don&#39;t eat that much?? I was thinking maybe 200g at most.

500g of carbs is 2000 calories which is more than I eat per day now....if I ate nothing but carbs all day I imagine I&#39;d feel fairly sick.

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Refeeds, from my understanding (I have done a lot of research on them recently) are usually windows where you basically eat as many carbs as possible to up the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver. From what I have read, 5 hours seems to be a number given often. Anyway, from what I have read you should keep your fructose relatively low, fat very low, and just eat a ton of carbs. Also, you don&#39;t want to only eat fruits and veggies because to eat the proper amount of carbs you would be intaking HUGE amounts of fiber as well with these sources of carbs. So if you don&#39;t want to sit on the toliet the whole next day, you should stick to refined grains.

That seems to be what a refeed is...also, they usually take place after weight lifting.